It Is Open Season On Us

Trump hates us.

They just made it nearly impossible for us to file a federal workplace discrimination complaint.

EEOC rescinds LGBTQ-inclusive guidance on workplace harassment

Activists and Democratic politicians are outraged.

The Advocate

Trudy Ring

Jan 23, 2026

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has rescinded LGBTQ-inclusive guidance about what workplace harassment looks like and how to fight it, enraging community activists and allies.

The commission, which enforces federal antidiscrimination laws and can take employers to court, voted 2-1 Thursday to withdraw the document, which was approved in 2024, when Joe Biden was president, multiple media outlets report. It took up nearly 200 pages and included more than 70 examples of on-the-job harassment.

“Queerphobic” is the word increasingly used for bigots who hate anything LGBTQ+.

“While much of that guidance wasn’t new, one addition that rankled many conservatives was a section on gender identity and sexual orientation,” NPR reports. That was added to be in keeping with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bostock v. Clayton County decision. The court ruled in 2020 that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in banning sex discrimination in the workplace, also banned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Title VII bans discrimination based on sex, and the Supreme Court has previously ruled in Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989), that sex discrimination also covers sexual stereotypes. Yet to many Republicans, it seems, they believe it is their right to discriminate.

 EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, appointed by Donald Trump in 2020 and named chair by him last year, had said that under her watch, the agency would not advocate for transgender and nonbinary people, in keeping with Trump’s “two sexes” executive order.

Trump wrote bigoty and ignorance into his EO! As usual, the Trump administration has a wrapped view of discrimination!

The EEOC's war on woke

The government's antidiscrimination agency has a new focus: White men

Business Insider

By Amanda Hoover 

Jan 21, 2026

Last month, Andrea Lucas, the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, posted a video to X asking an unusual question: "Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex?" she says to the camera. "The EEOC is committed to identifying, attacking, and eliminating all forms of race and sex discrimination — including against white male applicants and employees."

The video has been viewed nearly 6 million times, with top comments heaping praise. "This message gave me hope because I did not think this was ever possible to happen to me in America," one user wrote. The video wasn't announcing a new policy; white men have been protected from discrimination just as people of any race or gender under the law. But it capped a year of sweeping efforts to align the bipartisan, independent EEOC with President Donald Trump's culture war on "woke."

This messaging is clearly targeted at his MAGA base: “They hired a Black person over me! It must be discrimination! I’m the best!”

Now, Trump's campaign promise to fight an "anti-white feeling" in America has materialized at the EEOC. Lucas, who was installed formally as chair in November, told Reuters last month it is her goal to "shift to a conservative view of civil rights," which includes inquiries into DEI programs that the administration argues can discriminate against white men and religious liberty issues. Deborah Vagins, national campaign director of Equal Rights Advocates, a nonprofit focused on gender equity in workplaces and schools, says it's an effort underway to "remake the EEOC in Trump's image."

"Remake the EEOC in Trump's image." yes into a racist, queerphobic, xenophobic image! 

The Congressional Equality Caucus writes,

“The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is supposed to protect vulnerable workers, including women, people of color, and LGBTQI+ workers, from discrimination on the job. Yet, since the start of her tenure, the EEOC Chair has consistently undermined protections for women, people of color, and LGBTQI+ workers. Now, she is taking away guidance intended to protect workers from harassment on the job, including instructions on anti-harassment policies, trainings, and complaint processes—and doing so outside of the established rulemaking process. When workers are sexually harassed, called racist slurs, or discriminated against at work, it harms our workforce and ultimately our economy. Workers can’t afford this—especially at a time of high costs, chaotic tariffs, and economic uncertainty. Women and vulnerable workers deserve so much better.”

Senator Murray's office wrote...

Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, released the following statement on U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Chair Andrea Lucas’s move to rescind the EEOC’s Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace.

The comprehensive anti-harassment guidance, issued in April 2024, was the EEOC’s first update on harassment since 1999. The 2024 guidance made much-needed and long-overdue updates to better reflect Congress’s intent, including addressing online harassment, and responding to the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County recognizing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on gender orientation and sexual discrimination. Senator Murray applauded the updated guidance when it was issued under the Biden administration.

But as BI went on to write,

The Supreme Court ruled last year that plaintiffs of a majority class, like white or straight people, do not have to meet a higher standard of proof than minorities to win discrimination cases, and the EEOC callout to white men could bring in more cases that were previously unreported. Legal experts I spoke to characterized the video as "clumsy," "inappropriate," and unprecedented, since the EEOC hasn't historically solicited complaints from specific protected classes over others. (The EEOC did not respond to questions I sent for this story). The shift in messaging doesn't mean that other groups are less entitled to fighting workplace discrimination. "It is a lot of shock and awe, smoke and mirrors, distraction," says Nance Schick, an employment attorney and workplace mediator. "But the law hasn't changed."

Also states like Connecticut have strong non-discrimination laws while states like Alabama, Mississippi and other states have weak non-discrimination laws.

In an article by AP News they write about a judge who ruled on Trump's adminstration trying to deport students who protested against Israel, U.S. District Judge William Young wrote in his ruling,

“The big problem in this case is that the cabinet secretaries, ostensibly and president of the United States, are not honoring the First Amendment,” said Young, an appointee of the late Republican President Ronald Reagan. “There doesn’t seem to be an understanding of what the First Amendment is by this government.”

The judge got that right!